Washington is good in the role, the story is interesting and hangs together, but it sounds like the writer(s) are missing the point. The nature of the breakout, career-wise, is that DZ plays a completely evil person rather than a protagonist. Much worse than, say, the Fishburne character (Bumpy Johnson, I think) in that other movie with Vanessa Williams, whose title ("Hoodlum"?) escapes me. Fishburne only murders white gangsters and corrupt cops, and tells Williams (who plays a Salvation Army type) that more honorable careers are closed to him.
The irony in the mundane title of Training Day is that the new recruit basically goes through Hell, with Harris as host.
mbs
> In _Training Day_ . . .Washington plays Alonzo Harris, an
> ambitious yet
> jaded narcotics officer compromised by his own pragmatism. . . .Training
. . .
>
> Alonzo, a veteran of the Machiavellian war on drugs waged
> in the very
> communities he comes from, has grown into an accomplished cynic ready to
> get out of narcotics and apss the torch to Hoyt, in whom he sees
> promise. . . .